Albus Dumbledore (the Harry Potter series)

Dumbledore is the headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and basically the most powerful damned wizard in the Harry Potter universe. He's a kindly old man, which is a good thing because he can turn invisible, create objects out of thin air, read minds, shoot fire, whatever. He's pretty much a god.

Unfortunately, most of the time he gives kind of boring speeches and makes a teenage boy do everything that he, being nearly all-powerful, should probably be doing instead.

The case against him:
Fans of the Harry Potter series have uttered the phrase "Where the crap is Dumbledore during all of this?" more than once. He's usually away on business when Harry and his friends are in imminent danger of attack, and the three of them are usually left to either figure out difficult riddles or single-handedly fight humongous snakes, a giant troll, an army of gigantic spiders--pretty much every horror imaginable. And when he says he's away on business, you know he's probably just hanging out in his apartment in his wizard underpants watching the wizarding equivalent of Frasier reruns.

Skeletor (Masters of the Universe)

Skeletor is He-Man's main nemesis in the Masters of the Universe TV show, comics and films. Essentially a nude, muscular Smurf with a yellow skull for a head, Skeletor is a highly-skilled sorcerer who wields one half of the "Power Sword." He-Man has the other half, and whoever unites the two will become, dare we say, the Master of the Universe.

The case against him:
If you're into nude men who like to ride around on giant cats then your entertainment options were pretty much limited to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. As a fan you know that Skeletor was possibly the baddest guy on this or any other planet.

He was blue, wore nothing but some legwarmers, a mini-skirt and a pair of suspenders, and had an entire mysterious magical arsenal at his command. He could fire lasers out of his eyes, teleport and shoot lightning out of his hands. But most convenient of all, was that he possessed the power of 'remote viewing' which enabled him to sit around in Snake Mountain and cackle at a vision of He-Man and his fellow semi-nude male friends, remarking to henchman Beast Man how He-Man was 'about to fall into' a devious trap he'd set (devious in this case meaning "easily escapable").

Profion (Dungeons and Dragons)

In this 2000 film, good Empress Savina is deeply concerned about equal rights and democracy for all, while evil Wizard Profion (Jeremy Irons) wants to rule all the land by ... OK, who cares, really? This movie was terrible, and Profion was the bad guy.

The case against him:
As far as evil wizards go, Profion is about as evil as they come. You can tell he's evil because he laughs at his own jokes a lot and hams up every scene he's in. Since he was portrayed by Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons, you'd think there would be some semblance of craft going on, and you would be wrong.

Anyway, Profion seems to be the most knowledgeable wizard in all the land--the only real competition we notice in the movie is in the form of a highly inexperienced apprentice wizard named Marina, who throughout the film relies almost entirely on Marlon Wayans and some other guy to rescue her. Magically speaking, Profion could pretty much have his way with everyone in the entire D&D universe and there isn't a damn thing anyone could really do about it.

Merlin (Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders)

Merlin has returned after centuries of absence to open up a shop in modern day America, circa 1984. With his bulky wife, Zurella, Merlin gives away or loses a number of magical artifacts which wreak havoc ranging from summoning Satan to causing plants to die.

The case against him:
As legend has it, Merlin is one of the greatest and most powerful wizards who has ever lived. Part human, part demon, he is a being of supreme skill and wisdom. Various writings have shown Merlin to have the power of prophecy, telepathy, necromancy, the ability to conjure realistic and terrifying illusions, and even an Obi Wan Kenobi-like "force ghost" power to revisit the living after death.

For being the keeper of all magical knowledge in the world and for supposedly being all-seeing and all-knowing, the Merlin in the '90s made-for-TV Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders would seem not up to the task of working the graveyard shift at a 7-11, much less raising the dead.

Lacking a basic knowledge of economics, Merlin gives away items in his store free of charge to anyone who decides to stop in, and he relies exclusively on a puppet, uh, we mean dragon, named Gwendelin for his security system. When a street hoodlum foils Gwendelin and makes off with an evil toy monkey, Merlin recovers the item not via a location triangulation spell but by handing out 'have you seen me?' flyers bearing the monkey's picture. Why not summon the monkey back using his powers of teleportation? Why not travel back in time and beef up his store's security? Why not rain hellfire down upon the earth, destroying the monkey and most of the planet's inhabitants? Unfortunately, we may never know.

Gargamel (The Smurfs)

Gargamel is a hermit "wizard" who is the Smurfs' main antagonist. At various times he either wants to capture the Smurfs and use them as part of a potion that creates gold, or he wants to eat them. The Smurfs are a versatile resource for Gargamel.

The case against him:
If successful wizarding were baseball, Gargamel would be the White Sox. His only goal in life is to capture the Smurfs and since all Smurfs are roughly the size of squirrels and subsist almost entirely on a diet of Smurfberries, one would conclude that a basic knowledge of mousetraps would do the trick.

Instead, Gargamel, with the entire arsenal of potions from the wizarding world at his disposal, launches infuriatingly complicated Rube Goldbergian magical schemes, and completely fails every single time.

Being outsmarted by a Smurf is like being outsmarted by one of your shoes. The Smurfs each fulfill a specific function in their little communist utopia, such as being bashful, vain or gay. Take them out of that element and they have no idea how to cope outside of screaming their blue heads off to get Papa Smurf to rescue them. The fact that Papa Smurf usually does rescue them by using his own magical powers means that Papa Smurf is actually a far greater wizard than Gargamel. By extension this probably also means that one of your shoes is likely a far greater wizard than Gargamel.

Ulrich of Craggenmoor (Dragonslayer)

Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings)